Stella McCartney / Pre-Fall 2013

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Stella McCartney has thrown presentations in many an undiscovered enclave of New York City, most recently a carnival party in a secret Lower East Side garden for resort 2013. This season the British designer opted for a more established milieu to showcase her new collection: the uptown headquarters of the Americas Society. “You know I’m actually half New Yorker, from this part of town,” said the designer. “And the collection speaks to that.” If you happened to step through the society’s double doors last night, past the unicorn ice sculpture, up the wooden staircase, and into a chandelier-lit vestibule, you would have found a modern tableau of sophistication: models dressed in mixed-media velvet and silk dresses, having their portraits painted by a trio of artists. In fact, the languid color-block looks were reminiscent of Abstract Expressionist works hanging in any number of storied museums north of Fifty-ninth Street. In the hallway stood a cluster of girls in bold, striped cocktail-hour cropped pants and blouses—one of whom had an oversize camel coat casually thrown over her shoulder, a nod, said McCartney, to the wardrobe of her eternally chic American mother, Linda.

The designer has a way of infusing all corners of a working wardrobe with a sense of ease, and that was apparent even against a buttoned-up backdrop. Super-luxurious fabrics like layered jacquard came laden with fun, like a red suit sprigged with jumbo flowers and a trapunto sweater appliquéd with a gigantic kestrel bird. As McCartney put it, “it was about loosening the stricter side of a woman and adding a little playfulness—bringing two emotions together.” She motioned to a burgundy bomber jacket paired with tailored track pants for proof, but could have easily been talking about what she herself wore: one elegantly oversize tweed onesie freshly minted on the pre-fall production floor.